Sounds like Schroedinger's shipment. If we don't know where it is, can it really be lost?
Where it is may be where it's supposed to be. Not knowing that doesn't make it lost.
Ex: If I send a ship to sea before we had radio/telegraph, I may not know where it is at any given point, but it's not lost and I don't need to go find it.
It's lost when it misses a check-in, and what constitutes a check-in is really company/org dependent.